


raise your children well

by CreamofTomatoSoup



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Background Poly, Bipolar Disorder, Bipolar Nathalie Sancoeur, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Not Canon Compliant, Swearing, adrian's bodyguard is named ezra cause thats his voice actor, adrianette gets like two seconds, nathalie becoming adrian's mom on accident, not canon in any way shape or form, ocs are nathalie's extended family, there's brief non-consensual touching so heads up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 22:11:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16503680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CreamofTomatoSoup/pseuds/CreamofTomatoSoup
Summary: Nathalie knew what she was signing up for when she came on as M. Agreste’s personal assistant.  She thought she did, anyway.---Nathalie starts to become a more involved parent in Adrian’s life than his own father, which is odd, considering that she’s not really his parent.





	raise your children well

**Author's Note:**

> I'm putting off my other long fic, so have 15k words of an entirely different fandom

 

Nathalie knew what she was signing up for when she came on as M. Agreste’s personal assistant.  She thought she did, anyway.

 

Professional assistants were some cross between secretary, representative, and glorified babysitter- Nathalie shadowed M. Agreste and knew the names and faces and yearly income of everyone he planned to speak to that day, juggled his appointments and meetings, and fended off ninety-nine percent of the bullshit someone thought was important enough to send up to the boss.  And she was _good_ at it.  She could see the difference in numbers if she ran papers back far enough, and even without the cool reassurance of math, Mme. Agreste assured her that M. Agreste’s schedule ran smoother under Nathalie’s watch then it ever did under his own supervision.

 

Mme. Agreste also insisted that she call her Emilie.  Nathalie thought that would be stepping out of bounds far enough to break her own leg, and told her so.  Mme. Agreste had laughed.

 

She had been lighthearted like that.  M. Agreste was gentler under her influence, more stable.  Nathalie was paid well. It had been good.

 

She had been good.

 

Somewhere in the aftermath of Mme. Agreste’s disappearance, M. Agreste started working at home.

 

Attending him in his own house would feel like toeing the line of professional and personal conduct, except his mansion was white walls and hard marble floors everywhere, and felt more like an office than the actual _office_ had.  The brief tour included water closets, kitchens, and guest rooms where she would be allowed to stay if necessary, and it still felt more like a hospital than a home.

 

Agreste had barely spoken a word to her outside of clipped necessities.  The tour was given by a monster of a man who stood two heads taller than her and broad as a truck.  His shirt creaked when he moved. His name was Ezra, and he was charged with bodyguarding and general caretaking of M. Agreste’s young son.

 

Agreste had a son.

 

Adrian was a slip of a boy, eight years old, with Mme Agreste’s wide green eyes, her nose and pointed chin.  He came running out of a hallway to cling to Ezra’s pants leg and watch her with wide, teary eyes.

 

“It’s alright, Adrian,” Ezra had said, very softly.  “This is Nathalie. She helps your father.”

 

And Nathalie, like an idiot, had said, “Very pleased to meet you, Adrian,” and held her hand out for him to shake like an adult.

 

Adrian had stared up at her and said nothing, eyes still very wide.

 

“I should go,” Ezra rumbled, apologetic.

 

She nodded, or did something that assured him it was alright, that she would find her way around by herself.  And then Ezra was leading Adrian back down the hallway, shutting a door behind them, cutting off Adrian’s small, tearful voice asking _“Where’s Maman?”_

 

Nathalie had been fine.  She had found her way to M. Agreste’s personal office and her own, smaller office.  Had set up her supplies, situated herself.

 

She could see the shadow of Mme Agreste- _Emilie-_ in Adrian’s face.  Had to shake the thought away.

 

There was an immeasurably fine line for assistants between personal and professional.  It was something about taking care of people at their worst and navigating their fluctuating whims and contradictory commands.  Balancing on the right side of that edge was a constant fight, and Nathalie was _good_ at it.  She was _proud_ of that.

 

In her boss’s cold, empty house, she thought she might be toeing that line.

 

\---

 

Adrian is fourteen by the time Nathalie manages to convince M. Agreste to let him go to a public school.

 

She has good reasons for it- being personal assistant to M. Agreste has somehow also become managing Adrian’s schedule and paperwork, and while Adrian is the politest teenager Nathalie has ever met, he’s still a teenager, which means occasionally he’s broody and uncooperative.  

 

She’s good at her work, but she can only really manage one ruly, brooding Agreste full-time.  So Adrian goes to a good, well-funded and respectable public school, and Nathalie gets to spread her workload a little more.  Everyone wins.

 

There’s also… M. Agreste is different, after Emilie’s disappearance.  The cool, blunt force of his personality has become brittle. He is colder.  He works all the time, withdrawing to his office, and takes no personal time.

 

Nathalie remembers her mother only faintly, the dimples in her cheeks when she smiled, her plump hands.  She worked all the time. She was never at home, and Nathalie did the cooking and cleaning and talked her siblings through their homework.  That had been a necessity, and still painful. Nathalie can only imagine how Adrian must feel, knowing they’re rich enough to live well for the rest of their lives, and yet his father still prefers work to spending time with him.

 

School will be an opportunity for him to branch out.  Maybe he’ll find better support among his peers than he does at home.

 

Those aren’t the reasons she presents to M. Agreste, but he doesn’t need to know that.

 

She feels less successful with her work when Adrian comes tumbling into the car after his first day at school, beaming and sopping wet.

 

“Where’s your umbrella?” she asks, because it’s second nature to take inventory.

 

“I let a classmate borrow it,” he says, breathless from running and getting water _everywhere._  His smile is about two notches down from blinding and he seems unfazed by Nathalie shuffling away from the growing puddle he’s getting over the nice leather seats.  “It was _amazing,_ Nathalie- there’s this boy who sits next to me, his name is Nino-”

 

Nathalie finds herself subject to a ten minute excited recount of Adrian’s day.  Apparently Mlle Bourgeois is in his class, but is still pushy and headstrong, and when Adrian got caught up in her bullying activities he accidently upset another young woman in his class, a very sweet girl named Marinette, but Nino and Marinette’s friend Alya helped clear up his mistake, and Chloe has a friend named Sabrina, and one of his teachers has pink hair styled away from her face like a mad scientist-

 

Nathalie looks in the rear-view mirror for help.  Ezra looks back at her helplessly, so she’s on her own on this one.

 

“Interesting,” she says, when he pauses for breath.  “You have piano in half an hour, but until then you have time to do as you wish-”

 

“Oh, about that!” Adrian says, bright.  “I signed up for the fencing team.”

 

Nathalie blinks.

 

“I thought, since it’s an exercise that builds thin muscle, and has a noble history, that maybe-”

 

Nathalie recovers in record time, switching gears.  It’s been a while since Adrian expressed interest in anything personal.  She mentally juggles Adrian’s schedule to see if it’ll fit, and she thinks it will, if she can get it past M. Agreste.

 

“And I checked, and it wouldn’t cut into anything else if we moved piano practice to evenings after dinner, and it doesn’t start til next week so there’s time to move everything around.”  Adrian pauses, breathes, and then hits Nathalie with one of his megawatt smiles. “Do you think Père would approve?”

 

“I see little reason why not,” she says, and she’s already typing out the question to M. Agreste.

 

“Oh good,” Adrian says, relaxing minutely, “Because I kind of faked his signature on the permission slips.”

 

 _What,_ Nathalie thinks.

 

“I didn’t want to bother him,” Adrian says, easily, like he hadn’t just technically committed a crime. He gestures with half a laugh, and has the decency to sound somewhat sheepish.  “It’s just- Alya got the papers for class president stuff and she just signed them herself, and Marinette was lecturing her about it and she said, _‘You think my sister’s gonna stop working to sign some dumb school stuff, you got another thought coming, Mari-’_ ”

 

Adrian’s voice goes high and bouncy as he imitates his classmate.  It’s the most Nathalie’s heard him say in one sitting. She wonders, vaguely, if she’s somehow fallen into some alternate dimension where Adrian’s a regular teenage boy.

 

“-and I thought Père’s so busy all the time and he wouldn’t want to be bothered for something small, and he might approve of me taking responsibility for myself-”

 

Oh, wow.  Wow. M. Agreste’s gonna kill her.

 

Adrian must see something in her expression, because he trails off, his bright expression fading.  There’s a flicker of fear before it smoothes into the cool, neutral facade she’s seen on M. Agreste’s face a thousand times.

 

“I may have overstepped,” he says, simply and formally.

 

Nathalie counts to five.  Tries to arrange what needs to be said into a good order.

 

“That was a foolish thing to do,” she says.

 

Adrian lowers his head.  His face remains neutral and still, and Nathalie can _see_ him retreating back behind his own eyelids.  She recognizes the look, had seen it reflected in the mirror when she was younger, when she minded her sisters and her mother’s absence was palpable.  Something in her chest starts to twinge.

 

 _Don’t get attached,_ she reminds herself. _Don’t get attached._

 

“I’ll speak to your father,” she says cooly.  “Don’t do that again. It compromises your father’s integrity, and your own.”

 

Adrian nods, subservient and quiet.  Nathalie ignores the quiet ache in her ribs.

 

\---

 

Nathalie does talk to M. Agreste about it.  She makes a plan. She slips it between two other items of business, and starts by introducing the idea as an acceptable activity that will allow Adrian to interact with his peers in a controlled and productive setting.  When M. Agreste will ask about paperwork, she’ll say Adrian is taking care of it and redirect his attention to the next item of business.

 

It’s a good plan.  She has half a dozen convincing reasons why Adrian should be allowed this one thing he’s picked for himself.  She is prepared.

 

“Very well,” M. Agreste says.  “As long as it does not interfere with his other responsibilities, he may continue as long as he wishes.”

 

Nathalie stares at the back of M. Agreste’s head.  She has not mentioned the paperwork. M. Agreste has not asked about the paperwork.

 

Fencing is dangerous.  Wasn’t he going to- ask about the teacher, the general practice, the safety precautions?

 

“Is there anything else?” M. Agreste asks mildly.

 

Nathalie rattles off another half dozen or so items of business and excuses herself.  M. Agreste doesn’t once turn around.

 

He’s busy, she reasons.  Running a company is a lot.  She knows. She’s his assistant.  

 

The twinge in her chest is back full force.  She ignores it, tries to remember the line between professional and personal that she’s supposed to be so good at.

 

Adrian’s face lights up when she informs him.  Then it falls again.

 

“What did he say about, the..” he trails off.  Starts again. “The, uhm, the permission slip?”

 

Nathalie doesn’t want to say that he didn’t ask.  So instead she looks Adrian square in the face and says, calm and deadpan, “What permission slip?”

 

Adrian stares at her.  She twitches her eyelid in the fastest wink in the world.

 

Adrian’s mouth opens.  He looks startled, and then the look is melting into something like wonder and childish glee.  He looks like an actual teenager for once.

 

Forget toeing the line between personal and professional, Nathalie realizes.  She’s fucking trodding on it now.

 

\---

 

Keeping that secret changes something fundamental in Adrian and Nathalie’s relationship.  He seems to consider her less as his father’s assistant and more as an acquaintance, or someone whom he can friendly with instead of merely civil.

 

Now he sometimes tells her interesting parts of his day, or amusing thoughts that are on his mind.  He seems a little brighter, a little more relaxed. More natural.

 

Nathalie knows she should respond with distant professionalism, but she can’t quite bring herself to ignore him completely.  So she settles for something cool and even, quiet, deadpan responses to his stories. He doesn’t seem fazed, but he doesn’t seem encouraged either, so Nathalie decides that it’s probably a success.

 

The first akuma appears a week or two after the signature incident- or, at least, it’s the first akuma that’s caught on the news.  

 

It happens at Adrian’s school.

 

Nathalie remembers being terrified.  It’s the most scared she’s been in a long time, struggling to breathe and her brain hyperfixed on the idea _do something, do something, do something,_ and she forgets her emergency medication and instead channels the urgent twitching in her fingers into making calls, into smoothing the fallout so Adrian has a safe place to land.

 

She calls the school, makes a therapist appointment with a trauma specialist, convinces the cook to make Adrian’s favorite tonight, looks up other public and private schools in the surrounding area in case Adrian wants to leave.  The mania lingers even after Ezra texts her _got him._

 

It’s only when Adrian walks through the door that relief hits her like a punch to the gut, and she realizes she was manic in the first place.

 

She settles Adrian- who seems bright and excited and completely unaffected- and notifies M. Agreste.  She maps out a three hour break for herself and takes her medication.

 

By the end of it she feels tired, like she’s lagging a second or two behind.  But the frantic high has evened out into something more reasonable, and she feels less like she’s about to hurtle off the ground and fly away into the sky.  She’s still a little too sharp for her liking, but she feels well enough to attend to Adrian and hammer the details of transferring him to a different school.

 

“No!” Adrian says immediately, frantically enough to startle her.

 

She looks up at him in surprise.  He seems to realise he was too loud, because he coughs and waves his hands and speaks at a lower volume.  

 

“I really, really like this school,” he says quickly.  “The akuma was a one-time thing- what are the chances of it happening again?”

 

“I highly doubt it would happen again,” Nathalie replies.  “It would be in case you wished to attend a different place-”

 

“Oh, that’s easy,” Adrian says, relaxing.  “I don’t want to.”

 

Nathalie stares at him.  A strange crime, bordering on supernatural, just occurred at his school, and he just seems excited.  Happy. Now he looks a little frightened, and he’s watching her like she might crush his dreams beneath her foot.

 

“... Very well,” she says.  “I’ll speak to your father. _In the meantime-”_ she adds, while he sighs in relief, “I _will_ book you an appointment with a therapist.  It can be a one time occurrence, or multiple, if you prefer, but it is important in order to maintain mental health.”

 

He nods quickly.  Nathalie is fairly certain he’d agree to murder at the moment.

 

“All right,” she says.  “Has your father spoken to you?”

 

Adrian’s face falls, then shutters into a neutral expression.  “He hasn’t had time yet.”

 

Nathalie stares at him.  Something in her chest is growing, quiet and old and angry.

 

“I see,” she says, and forces the feeling down.  She puts her tablet down and turns it off. “Well.  All your appointments are cancelled for the day, and you have an hour before dinner.  Besides the akuma attack-” and she doesn’t stumble over the words, even though she wants to, “-how was your day?”

 

Adrian lights up.

 

\---

 

She does talk to M. Agreste, at the usual time.  He doesn’t mention moving Adrian to a different school.  When she brings it up, he seems surprised.

 

“I see no danger,” he says.  Around his stylus, his knuckles are tight and white.  “Adrian was not targeted or harmed in the attack.”

 

Nathalie wonders if this is real life.  “If there are future attacks-”

 

“Adrian _won’t_ be targeted,” M. Agreste says, with a surprising amount of force.  He breathes in deeply, then out. Says, more calmly, “The Agreste name is famous.  Wealthy. Targeting Adrian would be asking for private intervention from our lawyers.  It would be suicide.”

 

Nathalie’s words are frozen in her throat.  The argument is so full of holes she can’t even get started.  The criminal akumatizing people- and she refuses to call him Hawkmoth, the moniker is ridiculous- is completely insane.  He might not listen to reason, or be swayed by the threat of a private investigative force, and didn’t M. Agreste care even a little that his son was at the school where it happened?

 

Agreste continues to look at his pad, stylus hovering over the screen.  His shoulders are square and his expression is hard.

 

“Is there anything else?” he asks.

 

Nathalie forces the anger down.  Says politely, “No sir.”

 

\---

 

She spends two hours that evening looking up ways to treat teenagers suffering from a traumatic experience.  All of the sites start with _If your child has recently experienced…_ or something similar.  None of them cover how to treat your boss’s son of which you have been charged with part-time care.

 

She wishes, fiercely, that Emilie was still around.

 

She settles for attending Adrian’s first fencing practice.  M. Agreste might not have time, but surely having someone there to watch would be better than no one at all.

\---

 

A few weeks later, Nathalie is in the kitchen, cursing her life.

 

“Hey, Nathalie, do you know if-” Adrian stops in the doorway, his eyebrows raising.  “...Why do you have so many bags?”

 

Nathalie slings another empty grocery bag over her shoulder.  Carrying all this to the car is going to be hell, but Ezra was sick today and the cook was on break, so Nathalie gets to tramp to the grocery store and haul back enough food to feed a small elephant.

 

“I’m fetching groceries,” she says, determined to remain professional even with the stupid little watermelon-shaped bag slung around her neck.  “Do you need something?”

 

Adrian is looking at her with his eyebrows furrowed, his question apparently forgotten.

 

“Do you want help?”

 

“I’m quite fine, thank you.”

 

“Are you sure?” Adrian is trotting down the little step into the kitchen, and he gives Nathalie one of his bright, hopeful smiles.  “I don’t mind.”

 

“I have never not been sure,” Nathalie deadpans.  “Ever, in my life.”

 

Adrian’s eyes light up, and then- he’s giving her a grin she hasn’t quite seen on his face before, something sly.

 

“Never?” he asks innocently.  “Not even-”

 

Nathalie levels a look at him.  She’s not sure what blackmail he has over her, but she has the Sancouer Murder Gaze™ honed to a fine art and can burn lesser humans into a smoking shadow with the weight of her disappointment.

 

To his credit, Adrian only withers a little bit before he bounces back, coming around the edge of the table to pick up some more bags with a grin.  “Can I come with?”

 

“It’s a grocery store.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You have homework.”

 

“Yeah, but it’s all easy stuff,”  Adrian says. He’s bouncing on his toes as he looks at her, bright and hopeful.  “I’ve never been in a grocery store before.”

 

Which… makes an unfortunate amount of sense.  He grew up in a large house and has been catered to all his life, of course he hasn’t run errands.  She could use some extra hands with the groceries. M. Agreste doesn’t need to know.

 

“If you want to,” she allows.  Adrian pumps his fist in victory when he thinks she can’t see. “Go put on a jacket.”

 

“S’not that cold.”

 

“The store is colder.”

 

“I’ll be fine.”

 

He’s not fine.  Ten minutes into the store, and he’s shivering and eyeing Nathalie’s jacket.  Nathalie only raises an eyebrow at him in reply. He looks at her pleadingly.

 

“Please?”

 

“You should have brought your jacket.”

 

Adrian grumbles, but gets distracted by the grocery cart.  He’s fascinated with it, pushing it at every available opportunity.  Nathalie stops trying to stop him and lets him rattle after her like a lost comet, occasionally bumping into passerby or the little displays at the end of aisles.

 

“I thought there wouldn’t be a ceiling?” he says to Nathalie.  It’s framed like a question.

 

“Why wouldn’t there be a ceiling?”

 

“Cause, y’know, in movies and comics, when they’re buying food, there’s never a ceiling.  It’s just carts of stuff.”

 

“What?” Nathalie picks up the little cans of tomato paste the cook uses too often.  The logo design is atrocious. “What movies have you been watching?”

 

“Romantic comedies?”

 

“Nevermind.”

 

“Aww, Nathalie!” Adrian whines.  She can _hear_ him pouting without turning around. “They’re so much fun though!  And sweet, and they’re nice to watch sometimes when you’re feeling lonely-”

 

“Which ones have grocery stores without a ceiling?” Nathalie asks before Adrian can go on a ramble about how much he likes romantic comedies, apparently.

 

“Dunno.  They usually have a different person at each cart?  Selling their stuff?”

 

“That’s a farmer’s market.”

 

“A what?”

 

Nathalie doesn’t give him a horrified look, but it’s a near thing.  Instead she spends ten minutes explaining what a farmer’s market is, up to and including kettlecorn and buying honey sticks.  Adrian is fascinated and wants to go to one, but it’s Thursday and the local one Nathalie visits sometimes is only open on Saturdays.

 

Adrian makes her promise to take him next time.  But then they’re in the produce section, and Adrian’s eyes are bugging out of his head as he goggles at the refrigerated wall of lettuce, and Nathalie privately thinks that if the tiny grocer’s store fascinates him this much then a farmer’s market is gonna blow his mind.

 

“Hey.  Hey, Nathalie.”

 

Nathalie glances up at Adrian.  He’s holding a tomato next to his face and grinning wide enough to split his face in two.

 

“Don’t you think I’m cool from my head _to-mah-toes?”_ he asks.

 

Nathalie gives him a flat stare.  He is unfazed.

 

 _“Orange_ you glad you brought me?”

 

Nathalie narrows her eyes.

 

“Don’t you _carrot_ at all?”

 

For the rest of the trip, she’s treated to a plethora of food-themed jokes.  She tries not to laugh because she likes her reputation as a cool-headed assistant, but can’t stop herself from giving deadpan responses.  This delights Adrian to no end.

 

After a bad one about lobsters, Nathalie stares, expressionless, into the middle distance.  

 

“Ah.  I’m in hell.”

 

“Don’t you mean… _shell?”_

 

Adrian is holding a crab and grinning like a maniac.  It’s waving its little rubber-banded claws around, alarmingly close to his eyes.

 

“Put that down.”

 

“Aww, but look at his little face!”  Adrian beams at the crab, who only waves its claws harder.  It looks like an angry boxer.

 

“You can only take it if you’re going to eat it.”

 

“Don’t say that!  He can hear you.”

 

“Good.”

 

 _“Nathalie!”_ Adrian gasps dramatically, sounding for all the world like a scandalized white suburban mom.  He clutches the crab close to his chest. “I can’t believe you would say that to this in-crab-ible-”

 

The crab picks this moment to stretch the rubber band far enough to clack its claws ominously.  Adrian flails and drops it back into the crab bucket. Nathalie manages to hide her ugly snort before Adrian recovers enough to notice.

 

“In-crab-ible,” she says drily, instead.

 

“Yeah.” Adrian is clutching his fingers and giving the crab bucket a wounded look.  “In-crab-ible. Incredible. He tried to pinch me!”

 

“How could he betray your trust like that.”

 

“Right?  What a crab-tastrophe.”

 

Nathalie’s mouth twitches.  Adrian’s eyes widen, and then he’s bombarding her with more bad puns, looking delighted.  She manages not to laugh by sheer force of will, but she definitely has to cover up a smile once or twice.

 

Surprisingly, Adrian’s interest in groceries extends to helping her put them away.  Back in the house he runs all over the kitchen, taking delight in the walk-in freezer he apparently didn’t know they had.

 

“That’s everything, right?” Adrian asks, peering into an empty bag.

 

“Yes.” Nathalie considers, and then, before she can overthink it, says, “I think that went… _berry_ well.”

 

Adrian doesn’t notice for a second, but then his head comes whipping up and he stares at Nathalie with naked shock and awe.

 

“You punned!”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“You _punned!”_

 

Nathalie peers over the top of her glasses and nails him with a flat stare.  “No one will ever believe you.”

 

Adrian grins, blinding, like the sun, and then he jumps and does a flip over the table, sliding across to land at Nathalie’s feet, while she takes a step back, startled.

 

“It’s okay,” Adrian says, and then he leans close and winks, like he’s telling her a secret.   _“I_ know.”

 

And then he bounces out of the kitchen.  Nathalie stares at his retreating back, bewildered.

 

_When did he learn to flip?_

 

\---

 

A few months later, Nathalie is writing a letter to a furious investor informing him, in the politest possible of terms, that he can go fuck himself before he gets a larger share of the company.  She’s in the middle of a really, really good thinly veiled insult when Adrian bursts into the room.

 

“Nathalie!” he says, wild-eyed and breathless.  Nathalie finds herself scanning him for injuries before she realizes that he’s just excited.  Ezra trails in behind him, looking stoic, as usual.

 

“You’re a woman!” he shouts.

 

“I am,” Nathalie says.  She’s startled enough that it comes out like a question.

 

“And you like women!”

 

“I don’t remember telling you that,” she says, because she doesn’t.  Ezra’s stoic face looks tight, like he’s trying really, really hard not to laugh.

 

Adrian waves her off.  “So I like this girl,” he starts.

 

 _Whoo, boy,_ Nathalie thinks, while twenty years of being a professional assistant keep her expression neutral and unaffected.  Behind Adrian, Ezra’s eyes are bulging out of his head and his mouth is pressed into a thin line against laughter.

 

“-and she’s so amazing, Nathalie, she’s really smart and strong and she has?  Biceps?? And she can pick me up like it’s _nothing_ and she is so kind, Nathalie, like yesterday while we were on- while we were hanging out, she helped a lost little girl find her mom again?  And it was so sweet? Cause she just carried her on her shoulders until we found the mom and she gave the girl a little bow afterwards and-”

 

Nathalie finds herself subject to a fifteen minute long ramble of how wonderful this girl is, Adrian flushed to the tips of his ears, and by the end of it she’s reeling a little bit.

 

There’s something in the words that’s making Nathalie uneasy.  Adrian stumbles a lot over certain words, doesn’t meet her eyes on others.  He scratches the back of his head more than once, a nervous tick that he usually can successfully repress.

 

Maybe he’s just flustered.  Her gut instinct thinks that’s wrong, but she can’t think of a different reason.

 

There’s something else that’s bothering her though, and she waits til Adrian pauses for breath before she speaks.

 

“I see,” she says. “It sounds like you’ve asked her out before?”

 

Adrian flushes more.  “Yeah, but I think- I’ve y’know… _flirted_ … but I think she thinks I’m joking?”

 

Adrian turns bright red and stumbles over the word _flirted._  Nathalie can only wonder how he can flirt if he can’t even say the word with a straight face.

 

“I see,” she says again, and then, to buy herself time, she says, “Come sit down.”

 

Adrian flops into her extra seat while Ezra remains stoic by the door.  She shoots him a _help me_ look, and he has the nerve to widen his eyes at her innocently.  No help there, then.

 

“Good communication,” she starts, and holy shit she’s having The Talk with her boss’s son, “Is a cornerstone of any good relationship.  You know you like her.”

 

He nods vigorously.

 

“Good,” she says, weakly.  “And she may or may not know that.”

 

He nods, more subdued.

 

“Okay,” she says.  “I would ask her out as clearly as possible.  I would come up with a script beforehand, so I’d have all the things I want to say ready to go.  I would make it clear that I am asking for a romantic relationship, and that I was being serious.”

 

He listens attentively, eyes wide and leaning forward like he’s hanging on her every word.  “What do I say?”

 

“That’s- really not something- that’s up to you,” she says, struggling to find the right words.  Ezra, the little shit, is shaking with repressed laughter. “They have to be _your_ words.”

 

“My words,” Adrian repeats.  “Is there- something I can say or do to make it- to make her-” he suddenly looks away, flushing a little bit.  Trails off.

 

Nathalie feels a little sick.  She thinks of M. Agreste’s constant absence.  Feels anger crawling a burning path up her chest.

 

“Adrian,” she says, as gentle as she can, which is still a little stilted.  “You can’t _make_ her.”

 

Adrian flushes deeper.  His bright expression has faded into something that looks a little sick, and very ashamed.  Over his shoulder Ezra looks a little confused. He probably hasn’t heard the last bit, or the words haven’t penetrated enough to make sense, which is probably for the best.

 

“I- I know- I didn’t mean- that,” Adrian stutters.

 

“I know you didn’t.” Nathalie feels like she’s on a thin precipe.

 

“I would never…” he gestures, frantically.   _“That.”_

 

“I know,” Nathalie says.  “I know you wouldn’t.”

 

Adrian nods, seems to be sinking into himself.  Nathalie doesn’t bite her lip, because she hasn’t done that since her internship days, but the urge feels like a physical itch.  She considers her words, careful.

 

“A relationship,” she says, slowly, “Is not something to be pursued like a goal.  You don’t- pursue a person like they are something to be caught.”

 

Adrian swallows, looks at his feet.  Nods.

 

“A relationship is- an offer,” Nathalie says.  “On both sides. You offer, but you can’t- demand something in return.  She doesn’t owe you anything. There’s not- a list of things you do that guarantee she’ll date you.”

 

He’s still staring at his feet.  Nods again.

 

“That doesn’t mean you can’t ask,” Nathalie says, very gently.

 

He swallows.  Keeps looking at his feet.  He looks young, and scared.

 

“I don’t want-” he starts.  Stops. Says, “I don’t want to push her, or make her feel like she- owes me anything.  Because she _doesn’t,_ she doesn’t.  She gives so much, she doesn’t owe anyone _anything.”_

 

Nathalie nods.  Waits, but Adrian seems frozen up in his chair.

 

“Adrian?” she asks.

 

He swallows, says in a very small voice, “What- what if she says no?”

 

Nathalie’s chest hurts.  She’s furious, a quiet, burning rage in her, at M. Agreste, for not spending time with his son, for not teaching him this sooner, for half a million reasons.

 

“Then it sucks,” she says, matter of fact.  Adrian looks up at her, and she adds, “It sucks _balls.”_

 

Adrian chokes on half a hysterical laugh, surprised.  He’s looking at her with wide eyes, his hand pressing his laughter back into his mouth.

 

“It hurts,” she says. “But it’s not the end of the world.  And you must accept her decision. At the end of the day, it’s her choice.  Both your choices,” she amends. “You both have to choose it, and keep choosing it.”

 

Adrian swallows.  Gives her a weak smile.  “S’not the end of the world,” he agrees.

 

“No,” Nathalie says. “It’s not.  And part of being a good person is remembering that, and accepting rejection gracefully.  Even when it hurts. _Especially_ when it hurts.”

 

Adrian sighs out a long breath through his nose.  Nods again. He seems steadier now, still a little nervous, but not scared.  

 

“Okay,” he says.  “I ask her out, seriously, on a date.  I say explicitly that it’s a date-date.  A romantic date. And I say that if that’s not something she wants that that’s totally okay, and nothing has to change, and I’m happy being friends with her.  And if she says no, then she says no, and I respect that. I don’t push, or bargain. And I don’t ask again.”

 

“Yes,” Nathalie says, gentle, something warm and approving building in her.  “Yes, that’s exactly right.”

 

Adrian smiles.  Laughs, again, a strangled, scared sound.  “How are you not terrified when you do this?”

 

“I’m terrified every time,” Nathalie says, completely honestly.  And then, because Ezra has been no help and because at heart she’s incredibly petty, she adds, “I’m sure your bodyguard would be happy to help you practice.”

 

The betrayed look Ezra sends her is pure murder and completely worth it.

 

\---

 

The next morning, Adrian comes down the stairs with the universal expression of a heartbroken teenager.

 

Nathalie wonders when he had time to ask the girl out between the conversation yesterday and this morning.  He’d been inside all evening, hadn’t he? Maybe he had called her?

 

She doesn’t think staying cooped up in the house will help him, so she comes with him on the ride to school and makes Ezra stop by the little Duprain-Cheng Bakery that Adrian likes.  She pulls him inside, to his surprise and half-hearted protests that he’ll be late for school, and buys him enough macaroons to feed him and probably his entire class.

 

The girl at the register splutters helplessly when she sees him, flushing approximately the color of a tomato.  Adrian doesn’t seem to notice. It’s kind of cute.

 

In the car, Adrian looks at the giant bag like it’s an alien, and he holds it carefully, like it’s fragile, or like it’ll break if he breathes wrong.  By the time they get to the school, Nathalie is half afraid that she’s shocked him.

 

But he gets out alright when they get to the school, and stops to give Nathalie a watery smile.

 

“Thanks,” he says.

 

“It’s my pleasure,” Nathalie says, simply.

 

\---

 

Maybe a month after that, Nathalie is at one of Adrian’s photoshoots.

 

She usually isn’t.  Adrian started modelling at two and has been doing this quite literally all his life.  The photographers are all discrete and trustworthy. Ezra accompanies him as his driver and bodyguard, and that’s usually enough.

 

But Ezra is sick again, so Nathalie finds herself standing primly to the side and watching the photographer curse the alternatively cloudy and sunny afternoon as it ruins his lighting.

 

“Just _pick_ one!” he bellows, shaking his fist at the sky.  It’s kind of hilarious. Off to the side, Adrian is trying hard not to laugh.  “Screw this. Ten minute break everyone!”

 

The camera and lighting crew sigh and scatter out of the sun into the shade.  It’s a public park, which makes Nathalie leery; too easy for someone to mob Adrian at work, where his public image makes it impossible to be anything but polite.  But the photographer insisted on the park for his particular vision, and he’s very good at his work, so in the public park they are.

 

Speaking of, there’s a gaggle of girls whispering to each other off to the side.  They’re eyeing Adrian with a hungry look that’s uncomfortably familiar.

 

Nathalie does not shift uneasily, because she never does that.  She does narrow her eyes. She is only human.

 

“Hey, lady!”

 

It’s the photographer, waving her down.  She glances uneasily at the girls, but they haven’t moved, and Adrian is happily standing in the shade and drinking water.

 

“You’re Agreste’s manager, right?” the photographer says, pulling her attention away.

 

“I’m assisting him today,” Nathalie says, which is a useful little phrase that is both technically true and reveals absolutely nothing.

 

“Right.  He’s a good kid, has the smile down.  He’s been doing this a while?”

 

“Yes,” Nathalie says, flat, wondering where this is leading to.

 

“Right.  So I got a friend, right, one of the artistic types-”

 

Nathalie listens to a rambling disjointed proposal that Adrian model for an art piece.  It doesn’t sound like there’s money involved, but it does sound like there’s good publicity, so she listens reluctantly.

 

Across the way, the girls have approached Adrian.  They’re talking. One girl is smiling and looking him up and down.  Adrian is smiling politely back, but his shoulders are tense. He’s resting one hand on the back of his neck.

 

“I’d give him your business email.  He’s a busy guy, but he does good stuff, and Agreste really got the kind of softer look he’s going for, y’know?”

 

Nathalie tears her eyes away from the girls to give him a brief nod.  The photographer takes this as permission to ramble on. Nathalie’s hands itch.

 

One of the girls reaches out.  Adrian steps back quickly before she can touch his chest.

 

“We’ll consider it,” Nathalie interrupts the photographer, clipped.  “Give him my business email and have him contact me at his convenience.  Good day,” she adds, walking away even as he looks startled.

 

She covers the distance to Adrian is long strides.  “Agreste.”

 

Adrian gives her a look of pure relief.  The girls all scowl.

 

“The cameramen wish to speak to you,” she lies smoothly, before anyone can protest.

 

“O-oh, alright!” Adrian says, coming to her side quickly.  “Nice to meet you all, but I’m afraid I have to go-”

 

“Oh, but Adrian-” one of the girls coos.

 

 _“Now_ , Agreste,” Nathalie says, dry as the desert, leveling her flat stare at the girl.  She withers, eyes skittering off to the side. Nathalie turns on her heel, satisfied, and ushers Adrian away.

 

Adrian relaxes the further they walk away, his shoulders unlocking, the hairs on his neck going down.  Nathalie watches out of the corner of her eyes.

 

There’s a fierce, angry, hot creature clawing at the inside of her chest.  It is only marginally satisfied with Adrian’s relieved expression. She pushes it down; she’ll have to analyze that feeling later.

 

“Which cameraman needed to talk to me?” Adrian asks her, bright.

 

“None of them,” she says plainly.  She turns her head to look at him fully, at his momentarily confused expression.  “Were they making you uncomfortable?”

 

“Oh,” Adrian says, his gaze flicking away, and then he’s summoning up one of his megawatt smiles, slotting it into place like a mask shuttering down.  “Of course not! They were just curious-”

 

“Adrian,” Nathalie says flatly.  Adrian’s words dry up and he glances away again.

 

They walk in silence for a bit.  Nathalie leads him away and behind the camera crew’s equipment, tucked out of sight from most of the park, sits with him on a sturdy box.

 

“Unrelated,” she says, simply.  “If anyone makes you uncomfortable, you are allowed and encouraged to use me as an excuse.  Simply say that I require you for something and that you have to leave.”

 

Adrian looks at her.  The smile is no longer on his face, but the vulnerability is genuine.

 

“You can say that I am the worst boss,” she continues, ignoring for now that she is not technically his boss.  “Or that I’m a bitch, or that I’m overworking you. That is all fine. Whatever you need to say to make them let you go more easily.  I assure you, I do not mind and I vastly prefer you doing that than making yourself stay in an uncomfortable situation.”

 

Adrian looks at her, startled, when she says _bitch._  It occurs to her that he’s probably never heard her swear before.  But he doesn’t seem overwhelmed, and after a moment his back starts to relax more.

 

“Okay,” he says.  He gives her a very small, wry smile.  “I don’t think I could ever call you that.”

 

“Calling me names is not a requirement, if you do not wish,” she replies, dry.  “You can simply say that you are required elsewhere. But thank you. Your concern is touching.”

 

They’re quiet for awhile, watching the changing sky.  Nathalie reminds him to drink his water. He takes slow sips.  Asks her if a particular cloud looks like a bird. It looks more like a boat to her.

 

After a while the photographer calls everyone back together again.  They stand and make their way back to the shoot.

 

“Thanks,” Adrian tells her, before getting back into place in front of the cameras.

 

“Of course,” she replies.

 

\---

 

Barely a week after that, Adrian complains of a pain in his jaw.  After a couple of days with no change, they take him to see the dentist, who takes one look in his mouth and says, “Well, we’re gonna have to yank his wisdom teeth,” and that’s that.

 

Agreste can’t be there, because of course he can’t, so Natalie finds herself sitting in the waiting room listening to mediocre music and flipping through the trashy magazines on the little table.  Next to her, Ezra balances gingerly on a chair made for a man half his size. It creaks alarmingly under his weight. Nathalie has to fight the rising urge to break either the chair or the radio.

 

The nurse opens a door and calls, “For Monsieur Agreste?” and Nathalie gets up and introduces herself, ignoring the nurse’s confused look when her last name is different.  He takes them to the back and wheels Adrian out of the operating room.

 

Adrian is staring at the blue, medical wheelchair he’s in with wide eyes.  He keeps trying to touch the wheels while the nurse gently bats his hands away.

 

“Hello, Adrian,” Nathalie says, to get his attention.

 

He looks at her.  His pupils are so dilated she’s half afraid the light is going to hurt him.

 

“They took m’bones,” he slurs.

 

Ezra muffles a snort into his shirt sleeve.  Nathalie keeps her face straight. “Did they?”

 

“Yeah,” Adrian says.  Jabs a finger at his face, manages to hit his cheekbone. “Right… righ’ here.”

 

“I see,” Nathalie says, as the doctor comes out of the room, scribbling something on a clipboard.

 

“He’s still on heavy pain medication.” he says, ripping a piece of paper off and giving it to Nathalie- it’s a prescription.  “He can take this every six hours for pain. He should eat soft foods for the next few days, and avoid using straws or hard foods.  If you have any questions, you can call the office, they’ll be happy to help you.”

 

“Thank you,” Nathalie says, accepting the papers.  She glances at Adrian, who’s staring at the overhead lights like he’s hypnotized.  “How long should he be like… that?”

 

The doctor gives her a pitying look.

 

Getting Adrian to the car is an adventure and a half.  He keeps poking his fingers into the wheels and crying when they get stuck.  Nathalie has to get the prescription filled, and Ezra wheels the chair backwards because when he wheeled forwards Adrian had leaned so far he’d almost fallen out.  

 

The surgery was scheduled for early evening, so the sky is darkening by the time Nathalie comes out of the clinic.  It’s still light enough to see Ezra in the parking lot. He’s letting Adrian hang on to the sleeve of his suit jacket and trying to wheel him with one hand.

 

Getting into the car is even worse.  By the time they’ve managed to fold him into the back seat, Nathalie is ready to retire forever.

 

“My face,” Adrian mumbles.  He’s feeling his swollen cheeks with his fingers.

 

Nathalie gets in the back seat just in time to see him stick a finger in his mouth, poking at his gums, and she throws herself across the seat to yank it out.

 

“No,” she says through gritted teeth.  “No, we don’t do that.”

 

“My face,” Adrian protests.  “Did bees sting m’face?”

 

“No,” Nathalie says, pushing Adrian’s hands down, away from his face.  “That’s anesthetic. It’ll go down.”

 

“Bees,” Adrian mumbles, but then he blinks at Nathalie and his face lights up.  Leans close to her, and she fumbles to support him, afraid he’s gonna fall over.

 

“I’ve go’ a cat,” he says like he’s telling her a secret.

 

“That’s nice,” Nathalie says, gently pushing him back into his seat.  He goes, compliant.

 

“Nuh,” Adrian says.  “No onnee, knows. Knows?  No one thin. Think. No one asks.”

 

He goes quiet.  Nathalie buckles him in, looks at his face.  It’s fallen. His eyes are wet.

 

“No one _asks,”_ he says, morose, and then trails off completely.  He looks out the window, eyes glazing over.

 

It’s the closest thing to a break either Ezra or Nathalie get.  By the time they get back to the mansion, Adrian has stuck his fingers in his mouth no less than seven times, and Nathalie is ready to tie his hands down if it’ll get him to stop.

 

Ezra opens the car door.  Nathalie gets out of the car, reveling in the five seconds of breaktime she’ll get while Ezra wrestles Adrian into his wheelchair.

 

“‘Rilla!” Adrian says, delighted.  “You’re here!”

 

She looks back, confused and momentarily horrified, but no one’s at the gate.  Adrian’s arms are wrapped around Ezra, who looks startled, and she remembers- oh right.  Adrian used to call him Gorilla.

 

“Yer small,” he slurs, sounding confused.  “I can reach y’face?”

 

Ezra peels one sweaty teenage hand off his face and shoots Nathalie a helpless look.  She comes around to help him.

 

“Let’s get in the chair, Adrian,” she says, forcing brightness into her voice.

 

“Dun wanna,” he slurs.  Pats Ezra’s face again. “Gorilla, ‘Rilla, tell ‘er I dun wanna.”

 

“C’mon,” Ezra rumbles. “Into the chair.”

 

They wrestle him into the chair, and then remember that the house is full of stairs.  Nathalie says “Can you carry him,” and apparently Ezra is still thrown off enough to not pick him up like an adult and instead settle him on his hip like he’s a fussy toddler.  Adrian seems fine with this, and tucks his head under Ezra’s chin, blinking owlishly.

 

“I missed you,” he slurs to Ezra, while Nathalie heads up in front of them to prepare Adrian’s room.  She pretends valiantly not to hear.

 

“I’ve been right here,” Ezra replies.

 

“Nooo, nno.  Missed you.”

 

Nathalie moves ahead before she can hear Ezra’s reply.  Pulls Adrian’s door open, goes to the bed to pull the covers back.  Through the wall of windows, the sky is fully black now, orange streetlight casting an alien glow up the buildings.  

 

She pushes hair out of her face, sighs through her nose.  Babysitting her sister’s kids has not adequately prepared her for this.

 

Ezra inches sideways in through the narrow doorway.  Adrian is still propped on his hip. It’s kind of hilarious.

 

“Help me,” Ezra hisses very quietly.

 

“Help,” Adrian agrees, woozy.  And then, in badly accented English and horribly off-key: _“Heeelp meee, I need a maaaan!”_

 

“I don’t know, Ezra,” Nathalie says, keeping her voice neutral by sheer force of will.  Ezra gives her a pleading look that she ignores with petty satisfaction. _“I’m_ not a man.”

 

_“And my heeaart is set on yoooouuu!”_

 

They get Adrian set down on the edge of the bed.  Nathalie loses the silent argument with Ezra and gets to wrestle Adrian’s shoes off while he gets his nightclothes out of the closet.  He comes back with a Ladybug shirt and flannel pants, for some reason.

 

“I wan’ ice cream,” Adrian mumbles.

 

“You can have water,” Nathalie replies, working his socks off.  It’s difficult because he’s kicking his legs lazily, like he’s trying to bounce to an invisible rhythm.

 

“I wan’ cade- cr- camber-” Silence.  And then, quietly, vehemently. _“Cheese.”_

 

“You can have water,” Nathalie repeats, firm.  She gives Ezra a glance, that he understands, thank God, and hurries off to get water.

 

“Gorilla?” Adrian asks in a small voice, as Ezra disappears through the doorway.  It sounds like _Where’s Maman?_ said in a child’s quiet, frightened voice.  Nathalie drives the memory out.

 

“He’s just getting water,” Nathalie says.  Hopes she sounds vaguely reassuring.

 

“He’s gonna leave,” Adrian says, voice very small.

 

“He’s _not_ leaving,” Nathalie says firmly, vaguely alarmed.  She stands, dirty socks in hand, and throws them towards the laundry basket.  “Can you put your pants on by yourself?”

 

“Père doesn’t love me,” Adrian says.

 

The sky is dark outside.  It is dim in the room, only lit by the orange streetlights, cold and alien.  Nathalie stands frozen, facing away from Adrian, looking at that tall, black wall of windows.

 

 _Don’t get attached,_ her own voice in her head says.   _You’re trodding on that line now._

 

She remembers her absent mother.  She remembers M. Agreste, his back turned, his shoulders squared and hard.

 

She needs to say something.  She turns, opening her mouth to say- something, she doesn’t know what, a denial, maybe- and Adrian isn’t even looking at her, already waving off her protests.

 

“Oh, he loves me,” he says, matter-of-fact.  “He jus’ doesn’t. _Love_ me.  He doesn’t care.  Didja know I broke m’arm once?”

 

“You- what?” Nathalie asks, weakly.

 

“Mhm.  Broke it.  From.. from…” he struggles upright.  Points to his forearm, drags a line about halfway around.  “There. Theere. _Snap.”_

 

He flicks his pinky out, miming a bone popping out of his arm.  Nathalie flinches.

 

“M’la- mla- Ladybug’s Charm fixed it.  Poof. Gone.” He waves his hand again.  “Nev’ happened.”

 

Nathalie stares.  Can’t quite believe what she’s hearing.

 

“I know it don’t matter,” Adrian says, like what he’s saying isn’t absurd.  “Nah’ really. Cuz Ladybug’s charm fixed it. Wasn’t even there that long. Bu’, bu’, it attacked the school.  I could’ve… I could’ve been at th’ school. And he didn’t even _ask.”_

 

Adrian’s voice trails off.  He stares at his arm. Nathalie’s eyes are dragged down, inexorably, towards his smooth, untouched arm, thinks, _maybe he’s lying, maybe, maybe he’s lying._ Her gut saying he’s not.

 

“Why doesn’t he _ask?”_ Adrian says.

 

The anger is crawling up in Nathalie’s chest again, old and wounded and burning, something that’s coming up and up and up and demanding to claw M. Agreste to _fucking_ pieces.

 

“Your father loves you,” Nathalie manages.  It sounds weak to her own ears. “He loves you, I promise.”

 

Adrian stares at his arm, unresponsive.

 

“He loves you,” Nathalie says, and it comes out fierce, like if she says it enough it will be true. “He loves you.”

 

Adrian lets his arm drop.  He’s hunching into himself, retreating back behind his eyes.  He looks tired, and old. Like someone too inured to absence to mourn it anymore.

 

“You’re a very brave young man, Adrian,” Nathalie says, because if she can’t give him his father’s love she can at least give him this.  He blinks. “You have the heart of a lion. You are kind, and attentive, and tremendously intelligent. You’re a good person.”

 

Adrian isn’t looking at her.  She reaches before she can reconsider, plants her hand on his shoulder.  He looks at it, startled, follows it up with his eyes to look at her face.  He blinks at her, looks bewildered.

 

“You’re a good son,” she tells him fiercely.

 

In the dim light, the orange light softens the edges of his face.  He looks like the eight-year from all those years ago, clinging to Ezra’s leg.  His eyes seem to glow faintly in the dark, catlike.

 

“Maman?” he asks, faintly.

 

Nathalie stares at him.  

 

He looks hopeful.  His eyes are wide, fixed on her face.  Nathalie’s breath is frozen in her throat.

 

She snatches her hand away from his shoulder like it’s a hot stove.  He blinks, confused, and she’s already backing away. He stares at her, his mouth forming words that she can’t hear.

 

She stumbles into Ezra’s chest.  He’s in the doorway, and he catches her with one hand, is asking her something.

 

“.. have to go,” she’s saying.  “I have- I have to go.”

 

She doesn’t stay to hear Ezra’s response.  She flees.

 

\---

 

She hyperventilates in the little guest room for an indeterminate amount of time.  By the time her breathing has evened out and the buzzing in her ears has died down, it’s well past midnight.

 

She can’t stay here.  If she sees Adrian she’s going to have another panic attack.

 

She’s never used her vacation days before.

 

She drags herself upright.  Packs her bag. Goes to M. Agreste’s office, because he won’t be asleep until two or three in the morning.

 

“Nathalie?” he asks her, startled.  The bright overhead lights hurt her eyes, bleach the color from the room.  “Do you need something?”

 

The anger is clawing at her chest, simmering.  She opens her mouth to say _I need to take my vacation days._  

 

What comes out is, “You should spend more time with your son.”

 

Agreste eyebrows fly up, and then they narrow.  His face hardens. He says, “I fail to see how that is any-”

 

“He called me Maman,” she says.

 

Agreste stares at her.  She feels like she’s floating, like she’s not quite here.  She stares back. She’s never interrupted him before, she realizes.

 

He opens his mouth.  Closes it. Says, “When?”

 

“Today,” she says.  “When he was on pain medication.”

 

There’s silence between them.  The lights hurt. M. Agreste is pale beneath them, hand clenching around his stylus.

 

He says, “Get out.”

 

She leaves.

 

\---

 

She gets in her car and drives in a kind of haze, and it’s only when she’s sitting in her sparse apartment that she realizes that she doesn’t want to sleep here.  It’s clean. It looks too much like the Agreste house.

 

She fumbles with her phone.  Dials her sister before she remembers how late it is.

 

Tezzie answers before she can hang up.

 

“What the hell, Natters,” her sister’s voice yawns in the phone.  “Fuck, it’s like… it’s one in the morning. Is somebody dead?”

 

Nathalie’s whole body slumps.  Tezzie’s voice is warm and amused in her ears like a balm.

 

“Tezzie,” she says, faintly.  Can’t think of any words.

 

“Natters?” Tezzie asks, concerned.  “Nathalie? What’s wrong?”

 

“I think I fucked up,” Nathalie manages, and starts crying.

 

\---

 

Nathalie can’t remember the last time she’s cried. She realizes Tezzie probably can’t remember either when she says, distressed, “Fuck, _fuck_ , Natters!”

 

She can’t stop it.  Her breath stutters and heaves in and out and her whole face feels too warm and her nose is running which is _disgusting_ and she’s pressed her hand to her mouth and her crying is coming out anyway,

 

“M’ok,” she mumbles.

 

“Like hell you are,” Tezzie replies.  Nathalie can here rummaging around in the background, and then keys jingling.  “Where are you?”

 

“M’fine.  S’late.”

 

_“Natters.”_

 

Nathalie glances helplessly at the dark window.  “I’m at m’apartment,” she says, “M’ok, I promise-”

 

_Your father loves you, I promise-_

 

She catches the tail end of Tezzie’s reply, “... get you anyway,” she’s saying.  

 

Nathalie should say no.  Tezzie has kids. She has work to go to tomorrow.  She doesn’t have time for Nathalie’s meltdown.

 

“Ok,” she says pathetically, instead.

 

“Shit, it’s bad, huh,” Tezzie says.  “I was ready to fight you on that.”

 

“Mm.”

 

“You got your meds?”

 

Nathalie stares at the overnight bag she packed for the Agreste house.  Feels strange and horrible. “Mhm.”

 

“Okay.  Do you want alcohol?”

 

Nathalie huffs on half a laugh.  “Oh my god, Tezzie.”

 

“Not even a little bit?”

 

_“Tezzie.”_

 

“How about ice cream?”

 

“I want-” Nathalie stares at the overnight bag.  Remembers Mme. Agreste. She hasn’t seen one of her movies in years, and the memory of her face is faded, a little warped.  In her mind’s eye, it looks more like Adrian’s face.

 

“I want a nap,” she says tiredly.

 

“It’s one in the morning, dumbass,” Tezzie says.  Nathalie can hear keys jingling, and then the dull, background rumble of a car engine.  “You’re going to bed and sleeping til noon.”

 

“I don’t think I’ve ever done that.”

 

“That’s deeply concerning.”  A garage door opening. “Alright, you’re on speaker.”

 

Normally she’d reprimand her for driving and talking.  She can’t summon the energy. “Okay,” she says dully.

 

“Damn,” Tezzie says quietly.  “That bad?”

 

“... Yeah.”

 

“Okay,” Tezzie says.  “Well. I’ll be there in twenty minutes, and we’ll kick Julie and Jean out of the bed and have sister cuddle time.  And we’ll sleep in and wake up and go to that stupid little crepe place and get a ton of crepes and ice cream and stay home and watch bad horror movies all day.”

 

“Y’got work.”

 

“Oh no, I’ve come down with pneumonia.”

 

“Oh my god, Tezzie.”

 

“Cough cough, bitch.”

 

Nathalie laughs, a real laugh that comes sawing free of her chest and almost hurts.  It chokes and mingles with tears but comes out anyway. Tezzie says _“Fuck_ yeah,” sounding pleased.

 

Tezzie talks to her the whole time she’s in the car, about small things, stupid things her coworkers did, how Jean and Julie surprised her last week with a candlelit dinner, how little Nathan figured out how to use the coffeemaker and scared the shit outta all of them, but he only wanted coffee to paint with, how little Ada and Manon climbed the fridge yesterday to get the cookie jar, how Ellie sings in the shower and has gotten really into awful boy bands.  It’s good, nonsensical things, and Nathalie presses her phone as close to her ear as she can and listens to the warm voice.

 

When Tezzie gets there and Nathalie unlocks the door, she sweeps her up into a crushing hug, her arms clamped around Nathalie’s ribs.  She’s broader and taller than Nathalie and can lift her up without any noticeable effort. Her hair is dark and smells faintly like kids shampoo.  Nathalie buries her nose into her neck and wraps her arms around her shoulders, vaguely aware that she’s clinging.

 

Nathalie tries to pick her own bag up, but Tezzie waves her off and slings it over her shoulder.  She protests all the way down to the car, but Tezzie grew up taller than her and can shove Nathalie along with one hand while holding her bag out of reach.  Nathalie thinks it’s revenge for everytime she did something similar when they were kids.

 

They talk about small things in the car.  Nathalie manages to contribute more than two words at a time, but she’s drifting.  She’s on her last dregs of energy.

 

They get to Tezzie’s apartment.  Drag themselves up the stairs. Tiptoe past the kids’ rooms.  It’s warmer, and cramped, two sofas shoved into a living room far too small for them.  Nathalie steps on at least two stuffed animals and an uncountable number of legos.

 

Julie ushers them in, her soft brown eyes scanning Nathalie’s face and saying, gentle, “Oh, dear, what happened to you?”

 

She’s small, round, with dark brown skin and thick hair and warm hands.  She smells like cinnamon and cookies. She has to get on tiptoes to kiss Nathalie’s cheeks, which makes Nathalie feel like an awkward giraffe, or like a teenager meeting their affectionate grandmother.

 

“I dunno, but we might need to beat someone up,” Tezzie says when Nathalie can’t summon her words.  “Is Jean awake?”

 

“Please don’t beat anyone up,” Nathalie says weakly.

 

“I’ll get him up.  Do you want us to sleep on the couch?”

 

“No,” Nathalie says.  “No, I’m. I’m okay. I’ll sleep on the couch, I don’t want to kick you out of your own bed-”

 

Julie takes Nathalie’s face in her soft, warm hands and looks her straight in the eye.  “Nathalie Sancouer,” she says, firm, “You will go sleep in a proper bed and you will like it.”

 

Nathalie flails and looks at Tezzie for help.  Tezzie just beams at her.

 

In the end, they all pile into the enormous master bed.  It’s king sized, and while Jean is laid out flat, snoring, he’s skinny enough that Julie can cuddle up to him on one side and Tezzie can shove Nathalie in on the other.

 

Nathalie lays tucked between Tezzie and Julie.  She stares up at the dark ceiling, overwhelmed, everything warm and loved and so different from the cold halls of the Agreste mansion.  Her sister is drooling in her hair and her sister’s wife and husband are tangled next to each other, and it’s good and homey and welcoming.

 

 _Adrian doesn’t have this,_ she thinks, and the thought pursues her to sleep.

 

\---

 

She wakes up briefly in the morning, when Nathan comes hurtling into the room, yelling “Auntie Natters!”

 

He leaps for the bed.  Jean shoots upright and snatches him out of the air, which is impressive for someone who just woke up.

 

“Nate?” Jean slurs.  “S’not the weekend.”

 

“Mama said Auntie Natters’s here!” Nathan yells, flailing.  Jean drops him on the bed and instantly he’s crawled on top of Nathalie, arms around her neck.

 

“Hey, Nate,” she mumbles.  “What’s up?”

 

“Oh, hey Nathalie,” Jean says, apparently unfazed that his sister-in-law is in his bed.  There’s an empty Julia-shaped space next to him, which he pats blindly, then squints at.

 

“It’s a school day, which is dumb,” Nathan informs her.  “School is dumb.”

 

“School’s important,” Nathalie says, because she’s trying to be a good influence, dammit.  “Hey, Jean.”

 

“Still dumb.”

 

“Nate!” Julia’s voice calls from the kitchen.  “Did you wake up Auntie Natters?”

 

“No!” Nathan lies immediately.  He turns to Nathalie and holds his finger up to his mouth shushing her urgently.  He has his Jean’s blue eyes and Tezzie’s freckles and dark hair, and he’s adorable.  “Close your eyes!”

 

Nathalie closes her eyes obediently.  

 

“She’s still asleep!” Nate hollers.

 

Nathalie realizes that Tezzie’s no longer behind her.  She opens one eye, but Nathan plants his hand on her face, so she closes it again.

 

“Nathan, why don’t you go ask Mama and Mami what they want for dinner?” Jean, bless him, comes to her rescue.

 

“But Natters!”

 

“She’ll be here later.  C’mon buddy.”

 

“I’ll see you later,” Nathalie tells him, and he scowls but scampers off.  Jean gets up, stretches, and then gives her a puzzled glance.

 

“S’everything okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Nathalie mumbles.  “Yeah, I’m just. Being dumb.”

 

“You’re not dumb,” Jean tells her warmly.  He rolls out of bed, cracks his back. “Do you want me to get Tezzie for you?”

 

Nathalie does, but exhaustion is tugging at her eyelids. “... Maybe?”

 

She falls back under before she can hear his reply.

 

\---

 

She wakes up more slowly, next time.  It’s eleven, which is close enough to noon that she doesn’t feel guilty about getting up.

 

Tezzie’s in the kitchen, and she shoves Nathalie down into the little breakfast nook (“No arguments!”) and runs back to the oven.  It smells like brioche, or some sugary pastry. Nathalie’s too relaxed to try and identify it.

 

The midmorning light is filtering in through the peach-colored curtains, casting a pinkish light over the table.  It highlights a framed photo on the wall: Jean, Julie and Tezzie, beaming, with Ellie, Nathan, Ada and Manon lined up in front of them.  It caught a moment with Ada poking Manon in the side, so his face is blurred and giggling, and Ellie is shooting them a look of alarm and Nathan looking delighted.  The three adults haven’t noticed yet.

 

It looks so- human.  Normal. She thinks of the tall painting of M. Agreste and Adrian, made like an old noble’s portrait, towering and cold.  She thinks of Adrian, bouncing behind her in the grocery store, telling her awful puns.

 

Tezzie sets of cup of tea in front of her, and sits across with her own mug, grinning.  “It’s chai. I figured you’ve been on caffeine so long you can’t stop cold turkey.”

 

“I think I have a kid,” Nathalie says.

 

“What, _”_ Tezzie says, because she’s useless.

 

“I don’t actually, I think.  He still has his dad-” Nathalie stumbles on that, because Adrian doesn’t really have M. Agreste.  Not in any meaningful way. But, “He’s not legally mine.”

 

Tezzie is gaping at her.  Nathalie fumbles with her words.

 

“You know my boss,” she says.

 

“... I know you have one?” Tezzie says.

 

“Yes.  He works from home, so I work in his house.”

 

“That’s a little fucked up.”

 

“Yes, whatever, shut up- he has a kid.  Adrian. And he doesn’t-” Nathalie stops, the fury coming up in her chest again.  She closes her eyes. Opens them again. “He doesn’t care for Adrian like he should.”

 

Tezzie’s face softens a little.  “That’s hard.”

 

“I know.  And I know it’s none of my business.  But-” but what? It wasn’t her business.  Her eyes feel hot again. _“Fuck.”_

 

“Woah, hey,” Tezzie says.  And she’s pushing a bunch of napkins into Nathalie’s hands.  “You can cry Natters, s’okay to cry-”

 

“Did you know Adrian broke his arm and Agreste didn’t _fucking_ notice?” comes tumbling out of her mouth.  “It only lasted a day because of the Ladybug Charm, but you know what?  You know what? Agreste didn’t _fucking_ ask about the akuma attack on Adrian’s school, and Adrian didn’t feel like it was necessary to tell him.  Do you know how absurd that is? How revolting?”

 

Tezzie hovers, worried.  “Natters-”

 

“He didn’t show up to _any_ of his fencing competitions,” Nathalie says.  “He didn’t- fuck- Tezzie, he didn’t pick him up from getting his _wisdom teeth yanked._  Adrian was high on pain medication and Agreste apparently still thought it was okay for his personal assistant and his son’s bodyguard to take care of his child.”

 

And then, she can’t stop.  It’s coming pouring out of her; M Agreste’s cold indifference to both his son and her personal concerns, Adrian wilting under his parents’ absence, getting him into a public school and how happy he was there, Adrian coming and asking her for romantic advice, buying him macaroons when it didn’t work out, Adrian’s friend Nino that he talks about all the time, Adrian’s crush that he still talks about and still has a solid friendship with, Adrian going grocery shopping with her, Adrian laughing, Adrian growing into a fine young man and still his father never spends time-

 

“And he called me Maman,” comes tumbling out of her.  And then she trails off, because that’s what this is all about, isn’t it?  “He called me Maman.”

 

Tezzie says, “Oh, Natters,” and takes her hand.  Nathalie squeezes back.

 

“I’m not his Maman,” she says.  Her voice sounds croaky and thick.  “I’m not. I didn’t raise him.”

 

“Natters, it kind of sounds like you did,” Tezzie says.

 

“Not as his _mom._  As his caretaker, maybe.  He already has a mom- had a mom- I don’t want him to try and replace her with me.”

 

Tezzie squeezes her hand tighter.  “Natters, he doesn’t have replace his mom for you to also be his mom.”

 

Nathalie chokes on half a sarcastic laugh, but Tezzie cuts her off.  “People can have two moms, Natters.”

 

“I know that,” she replies.  “Your kids have two moms, Tezzie, I know that- but generally...”

 

She trails off.  She wants to say that the parents are romantically involved, but that wasn’t always the case, was it?  And she had started taking care of Adrian around eight, so she had come in late, but kids got adopted at older ages.  The idea was just ridiculous because… because of _something._  It was ridiculous.

 

Tezzie squeezes her hand again, gentle.

 

“You don’t have to be his mom, Natters,” Tezzie says, gentle.

 

It doesn’t make Nathalie feel relieved.  It makes her feel worse.

 

“I know,” she says.  She sounds bitter and resigned to her own ears.

 

“But you are someone to him,” Tezzie says.

 

Nathalie looks at her.  Her younger sister’s eyes are warm and brown, and her skin is freckled like constellations.  Her gaze is intense.

 

“He trusts you,” Tezzie says simply.  “And you support him. You teach him how to be a good adult.  When he has questions, he knows he can come to you. And you look after his mental health and his emotional life.

 

“You could leave right now, if you wanted.  You could quit your job and move to a different city and never see him again.  But that won’t change that right now, you mean something to him. You’ve built something with him.  Maybe it’s not fully a mother-son thing, but the groundwork is there.

 

“If you can’t or don’t want to be a mom for him, that’s fine!  That’s completely fine. Fuck, Natters, you can decide you can’t be his mom but still think his dad is shit and take him to court for child abuse and get Adrian to a better family.  But if you’re giving up on this because it doesn’t exactly follow convention, then fuck that.”

 

Natters swallows.  She feels like crying, like her chest is being pried open.

 

“He didn’t mean it,” she says, fighting this as hard as she can, “He was on pain meds.”

 

“Well, that does make it harder to tell if he meant it,” Tezzie says.  “But it doesn’t mean that he didn’t.”

 

Natters is shaking her head, even though the words make sense.  But Tezzie is ruthlessly warmhearted and kind and approaching this with a much better understanding of family then anything Nathalie’s ever had.

 

“Think of it this way,” Tezzie says, gentle.  “If this were some other kid- I dunno, like if this were Nathan- would him calling you maman mess you up this much?”

 

“He’s my nephew,” Nathalie says weakly, but it’s a poor protest and they both know it.  She knows what Tezzie means.

 

“And,” Tezzie says, soft, gentle, warm, “If your boss stopped paying you, if you had no reason to stick around and take care of him- would you leave?”

 

Nathalie squeezes her eyes shut.  Thinks of Adrian laughing, thinks of the cold halls of the house, thinks of his face in the dim light of his room, shadowed, looking up at her with wonder and confusion.

 

“No,” she chokes.  “No. No, I wouldn’t.”

 

\---

 

Nathalie would have thought something should accompany that kind of epiphany.  Music, maybe. But Tezzie holds her hand and the world keeps spinning, and besides crying a lot, nothing really changes.

 

They sit on the sofa and watch bad horror movies.  Tezzie makes tiny little braids in Nathalie’s hair.  They eat ice cream and debate the stupidity of the protagonists and whether or not the special effects are realistic.

 

The kids come home after a while.  The twins demand to sit in Nathalie’s lap, so she has Ada on one leg and Manon on the other.  Nathan snuggles up between her and Tezzie. Ellie declares that she is too grown up for cuddling, and sits primly on the couch until Jean comes sweeping into the house and wails that _he’s a grown-up and he wants cuddles,_ and then sweeps her up while she squeals in protest and embarrassment.

 

Ada has Tezzie’s dark hair and freckles.  Manon has Julie’s brown skin. But they’re twins, through and through, and fight anyone who says otherwise.  Just as Julie, Jean, and Tezzie aren’t legally married, but they’re two wives and a husband in every other sense of the word.  And their children belong to them all.

 

 _Family can be strange,_ Nathalie reminds herself.  She wraps her arms around Nathan and blows raspberries into his cheek while he giggles and tries to fend her off.   _Family can be patchwork and odd and something you choose._

 

_Something you choose._

 

She doesn’t know what she wants.  She doesn’t know what Adrian wants.  But she wants to be there, and she wants him to have her as an option.

 

She stays with Tezzie’s family for three days.  Each day is warm and homey and lovely. They take the kids to the crepe place and Nathalie buys them an ungodly amount of ice cream.  Julie tsks over how skinny she is and complains of having another rail-thin body to feed, while Jean grins unapologetically and cries out _but my lovely figure!_ whenever she tries to get him to eat more.  She teaches Nathan the basics of the patented Sancouer Murder Gaze™ , to Tezzie’s horror.  Ellie teaches her, very seriously, how to bake croissants. Jean teaches her how to tango, and then Ada and Manon immediately demand the right to dance with her.  Instead of taking turns, Manon holds Nathalie’s hands and sits on Ada’s shoulders while she shuffles around with very nice footwork. Nathalie is terrified they’ll fall over.  They never do.

 

When she’s packed and ready to go, Nathan wails into her leg until she coaxes him off with promises to visit more often.  Ellie presses two wet kisses to her cheeks. Ada and Manon bounce all around her, a little too young to process that she’s leaving or be sad about it for very long.  Julie and Jean both hug her and kiss her cheeks and tell her to come back whenever she pleases. Tezzie throws her arms around her and holds her tightly to her chest.

 

“I’m afraid I’ll mess him up,” Nathalie confesses, softly, so only Tezzie can hear.

 

Tezzie pulls back, holds Nathalie’s face.  “You’ll do just fine. You raised me, didn’t you?”

 

Nathalie chokes on half a laugh, thinks of teaching Tezzie in their tiny house when they were kids, thinks of their absent mother and nonexistent father.

 

“Yeah,” she manages a watery smile.  “I guess I kind of did.”

 

\---

 

All the time in the world at Tezzie’s place would not make stepping back into the Agreste house feel any less like a warzone.

 

Nathalie realizes the difference immediately, because M. Agreste is there to meet her at the door.  Dread surges in her, but he only turns on his heel, cold, and beckons her after him.

 

He gives her more paperwork than Nathalie can remember sorting out in her life, and a timeline bordering on obscene.  She’ll be in the office until eleven at night if she works without breaks, which is probably M. Agreste’s intention. She doubts he expects her to finish.

 

But Nathalie is nothing if not fueled by spite, so she says a flat, “Yes sir,” and proceeds to work for ten hours without breaks.  If nothing else, she is going to decimate any attempt he might have at proving her a bad assistant.

 

She doesn’t see Adrian all day.  In fact, she doesn’t see him for three days, and when she does, it’s so quick she almost misses it.

 

Agreste and Adrian pass her in the hallway.  M. Agreste’s face tightens in displeasure. Adrian looks up, brightens, says “Oh, hey Nathalie!”

 

“Hello,” she says automatically, and then M. Agreste has put his hand on the small of Adrian’s back and is pushing him away, past her and down the hall.

 

“Oh-” Adrian goes, stumbling, but he glances back over his shoulder and says, “I’ll see you- later?”

 

It comes out like a question.  He’s gone before she can answer.

 

Her chest feels cold, and then burning.

 

It becomes increasingly clear over the next few weeks that M. Agreste is doing everything in his power, short of firing her, to keep her and Adrian separated.  It feels- ridiculous. Nathalie is not going to- _goad_ Adrian into hating his father, or something equally stupid.  And it’s absurd that M. Agreste only shows interest in his son after the Maman incident.

 

Nathalie should be happy for them.  It means M. Agreste is spending more time with his son.  And he does seem to be putting in a real effort, going to his fencing competition, his modeling events.  He hasn’t started picking him up from school, but still. It’s more effort than he’s shown since Mme Agreste’s disappearance.

 

It’s just- ridiculous that it comes at the cost of separating Nathalie and Adrian completely.

 

Nathalie works.  That’s one thing she can do.  She works and works and works, for a man she used to admire, a man she still admires in some ways.  She works out of spite. She works until her head aches constantly and her fingers rub through in spots and her back protests against her perfect posture.  

 

She sees Adrian from time to time, at a distance.  He seems happier. He smiles at his father, seems taken with him, seems to bask in M. Agreste’s sudden wave of attention.  That’s good. That’s very good. Nathalie feels paranoid, cautious, but that’s a side effect of being bipolar and she crushes the feelings down as well as she can.

 

She wonders if maybe M. Agreste will slacken after a while.  She wonders if he’ll give up the ghost and fire her. She wonders if Adrian is happier now.  Hopes he is.

 

\---

 

“He asks about you,” Ezra tells her.

 

“Hm,” Nathalie replies.  The words are floating around on the screen.  She peers harder.

 

Ezra shifts.  Doesn’t say anything else.  That’s fine. Nathalie knows he’s not one for talking.

 

\---

 

Nathalie stares up at the ceiling of her guest room at the mansion.  Her chest hurts. Her eyes burn. Adrian isn’t her child, she knows that.  Knows she can only offer herself as- an option. A parental figure, if he wants one.  She knows that. She’s okay with that.

 

She’s mad.  At something.  Tries to sort out what.

 

… She wants to be there, if Adrian needs her.  But M. Agreste won’t let her be.

 

 _I want to help,_ she thinks, boiling with quiet fury.   _Damn you, I just want to help your son._

 

She should text Tezzie.  She should talk to Ezra. She shouldn’t stew in this.

 

She does anyway.

 

\---

 

Now that she pays attention, she realizes that she can see some of herself in Adrian.  He has his mother’s laugh and her face and her warmth, and he can pull up his father’s neutral expression on command.  But there are small things, quiet things, that are purely Nathalie’s.

 

He can do a flat, even stare.  He folds his hands neatly in front of him when he’s thinking.  He sits with her prim and perfect posture when he wants to impress somebody.

 

 _When did I teach him that,_ she thinks.  And then, _when did he learn that from watching me?_

 

It doesn’t matter now, she supposes.  M. Agreste loves his son again and they spend time together like a proper family, and she keeps to her side of the professional and personal line like a proper assistant.  Everything is how it should be.

 

The burning in her chest only grows.

 

\---

 

Adrian seems to send her glances.  He seems confused, and hurt.

 

She tells herself she’s seeing things, and ignores it.

 

\---

 

And then she doesn’t, because Adrian corners her in the little guest room.

 

“Oh, hey!” he says brightly.  “I was hoping to catch you here.”

 

Nathalie stares at him.  She’s hunched over the bed, hand stretched out awkwardly to rearrange the covers.  She’s caught between the professional role she’s fallen back into and a random instinctive want to make a deadpan joke and make everything normal between them again.

 

“Hello, Adrian,” she says, a little stiffly.

 

Adrian leans awkwardly in the doorway.  He smiles. “I haven’t, uh, seen you in a while?  Not since I got my teeth out.”

 

“I’ve been very busy,” she says.

 

Adrian looks at her.  She can’t think of the right words, and he seems to wilt a little.

 

“Right,” he says, “I’m sure. Um.  I wanted to say I’m sorry?”

 

This time Nathalie is genuinely bewildered.  She lets go of the blanket, her eyebrows furrowing.  “What for?”

 

Adrian laughs, awkwardly.  “Um,” he says, gesturing. “My bodyguard said I might have- uh, that I scared you?  When I was on the medication? I don’t remember any of it, so I don’t know what I did, but he said you left right afterwards, and that must have- taken a lot.  Cause you’re Nathalie, and you’re really hard to shake?”

 

Nathalie stares.  She feels some weird mix of complimented and nervous.  She needs to strangle Ezra for interfering, whether he meant well or not.

 

“Thank you,” she says, tentative.

 

“Yeah,” Adrian says, and he looks nervous.  “So, um. I’m really sorry, and if you’re avoiding me, I get it, but like.  Whatever I can do to help-”

 

“Adrian,” Nathalie says instantly, because she will not let this stand.  She holds her hand up to stop the flow of words, straightens to face him.  “I’m not avoiding you. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

 

Adrian swallows.  “Are you sure?”

 

Nathalie curses M. Agreste and every misguided attempt at being a father he’s ever made.  “I’m sure. Your father has just had a lot of work for me. That’s all.”

 

“Oh,” Adrian says.  He rubs the back of his neck.  “Um. Can you tell me what I said?  When I was on the medicine?”

 

Nathalie stares.  She could tell him.  It might fuck Adrian up forever.  She could lie, or say that she had been uncomfortable, or something like that.  Anything like that. He twitches under her gaze and she wrenches herself back into the present.

 

“You did nothing wrong,” she settles for saying.  “I was just a little surprised.”

 

“I didn’t-” he gestures, wordless.  He bites his lip. And then, a little desperately, “Did I say anything about cats?”

 

What?

 

“No?” she says, and she’s really bewildered now, because that was oddly specific.   _Cats?_

 

Her gut twinges, trying to remember something, but she’s been feeling off all day, so she ignores it.  Adrian is slumping in relief. Purely on instinct, she narrows her eyes at him. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

 

“No!” Adrian says immediately, waving his hands.  “Nope, no, no I’m fine-”

 

“Adrian?”

 

Agreste’s voice comes floating up the hall.   _Shit_ , Nathalie thinks.

 

Adrian to her surprise, looks vaguely annoyed.  But he turns down the hallway and straightens, hands clasped neatly behind his back- some mix of M. Agreste’s posture and her own.  “Yes, Père?”

 

“What are you doing here?  It is late.”

 

“I was speaking with Nathalie-”

 

“It can wait,” M. Agreste says.  His voice is freezing. Adrian’s face falls, becomes blank.  Something inside Nathalie is seething, but she keeps her expression neutral.  M. Agreste appears in the doorway, his hands folded neatly at the small of his back.  “Go to bed. You have a long day tomorrow.”

 

Adrian’s face flickers, and he glances at Nathalie, but he says, “Yes, Père.” and slips away down the hall.

 

Agreste waits until his soft footsteps have faded.  Turns to look at Nathalie.

 

Nathalie looks back.  Keeps her gaze steady and cool.  She can guess what’s going to happen.  Her chest burns and hurts, but she comes to stand in the doorway.

 

She’s a few inches shorter than M. Agreste.  It’s never bothered her before.

 

“I need to talk to you,” M. Agreste says, cold, “About your behavior around my son.”

 

Every part of her is burning.  She can’t quite help the narrowing of her eyes.

 

“Sir?” she says because she’s supposed to.  Her voice is calm.

 

And M. Agreste talks.  He says something like _inappropriate_ and _out of bounds._  He says something like _jurisdiction_ , and some legal words that sound vaguely threatening, which is just insulting.  Nathalie’s been his assistant for long enough to know when he has nothing he can actually take someone to court for.

 

But then M. Agreste says something like, “I didn’t raise him to have him grow a childish attachment to my assistant-”

 

Nathalie doesn’t hear the rest of the words.  Instead, what comes cold and deadly out of her chest is, “No, you didn’t.”

 

Agreste stops.  Nathalie feels like she’s flying on a high.  She thinks, _oh that actually came out of my mouth._

 

“Excuse me?” Agreste says.

 

“I was agreeing with you, sir,” Nathalie says, smooth.  “You didn’t raise him.”

 

Agreste stares her down.  She doesn’t flinch. She looks back, calm and even.  Her heart is hammering in her ears, but she slows it by sheer force of will.

 

“... Would you like to finish that sentence?” M. Agreste says, soft and deadly.

 

“I was under the impression that I did, sir.”

 

His mouth twists, enraged, and Nathalie feels like she’s floating above the reach of humanity, untouchable.  She knows, intellectually, that she’ll pay for this later, but right now she _soars_.

 

“... How dare you,” M. Agreste snarls, and then, louder, “How _dare_ you insult me, my integrity, on such a fundamental level-”

 

The words wash over her like a tide.  Nathalie stands fast. She feels warm, poisonous satisfaction.

 

“You are not entitled to him in any way-”

 

She’s never thought that, but the idea that Adrian is something someone can be entitled to is- she doesn’t even have words for that, she’s fucking angry, she wants to tear this selfish, entitled, cold-hearted man to pieces.

 

“He does not need a misguided attempt to parent him-

 

“Of course not,” Nathalie says before she can stop herself.  “He has you, doesn’t he?”

 

Agreste recoils like she’s physically hit him.  Then he draws himself up, snarls, “Sancouer, you _pathetic_ woman, insulting me will grant you nothing.  I will not give you the satisfaction of so much as seeing him for the foreseeable future;  I will put him in a private school abroad and _you_ I will fire and blacken your name so severely that you _will never get a job in this field again-”_

 

“What an excellent idea!” Nathalie bites out, and what comes out of her is furious and boiling, bubbling.  “Just put your child somewhere conveniently out of the way because you can’t stand that he called a different woman mother, I’m sure he feels so loved-”

 

“I what?”

 

They both whip around.  Adrian is at the end of the hall, his eyes green and wide.

 

“Shit,” Nathalie says.

 

“Go to your room,” M. Agreste says, which isn’t much better.

 

“I called-” his eyes flicker to Nathalie.  His mouth works, but nothing comes out.

 

“Were you listening in on us?” M. Agreste asks.

 

“You were fighting,” Adrian says.  It sounds weak, small.

 

“We weren’t fighting,” Nathalie says, immediately.  It feels like being caught stealing, or kicking a dog.  Agreste, next to her, is also stiff and glancing at her sideways, floundering.

 

“We were just having a discussion.”

 

“You- you were.  You were yelling- I called Nathalie- that?”

 

“You were on medication, Adrian,” Nathalie says at the same time as M. Agreste says, “You were merely confused- son, we will discuss this _later.”_

 

Adrian is shaking his head like a dog trying to get water out its ears.  “I didn’t mean,” he says, and stupidly Nathalie’s heart starts to sink, “I didn’t mean- I’m so sorry-”

 

He bolts down the hall.  Nathalie moves to go after him, instinctive, but Agreste’s hand snatches her arm with bruising strength.

 

“You,” he snarls, “Have done _enough.”_

 

He lets go, striding down the hallway after his son.

 

And Nathalie stands in that hallway, her blood pounding in her ears, in time with the words _enough, enough, you have done enough._  She feels frozen.  She feels poisonous and strange and horrible.

 

After a while, she goes to bed.

 

\---

 

She doesn’t leave the mansion.  She thinks she should, but she remembers the last time she left.  Thinks it might be running away. Remembers that she wants to be present if Adrian wants or needs her.

 

She doesn’t sleep.  Agreste’s words, _you have done enough,_ echo in her skull.

 

Beneath that, the hot, burning creature in her chest is waking up, slowly, horribly, coming clawing up her throat, scorching and poisonous and terrible.

 

 _How dare he,_ it snarls, _how dare he, after everything he’s done._

 

It burns.  It hurts. She wants to get up and punch a hole in the wall.  She wants to quit and fly to Russia and never return. She wants-

 

She wants-

 

Adrian’s face, horrified, pale, saying, _I called her- what?_ Is painted across the backs of her eyelids.  

 

That hurts more than the burning anger.  That tears at her chest and leaves a gaping hole, a terrible self-loathing.  Adrian didn’t need anything more on his plate. He’s just a kid. Just a goddamn kid with a father that doesn’t look at him and a stupid, stupid woman that probably just caused him two or three disorders with one fucking sentence.

 

She wants something.  The ability to turn back time and learn to keep her fucking mouth shut, probably.

 

Stupid, stupid Nathalie.

 

\---

 

Sometime in the night, something cool and liquid floods the back of her brain.

 

It feels strange.  She jerks out of her stupor, stares up at the ceiling.  She’s still too angry to feel truly alarmed, and too filled with self-loathing to be truly afraid.  The cool, alien feeling in her brain makes her thoughts feel like jelly, like she’s processing everything through a thick veil.

 

 _The child you consider your son has been stolen from you,_ a cool, amused voice says.

 

It arrives in her brain without ever going through her ears.  There’s a faint purple light shining on the ceiling- from the mask forming around her face, the thin purple line known to everyone in Paris.

 

Nathalie should feel alarmed.  She does not.

 

 _I am Hawkmoth,_ the voice introduces. _I have a proposition._

 

\---

 

Nathalie does not consider herself a good person.

 

She considers herself solution-orientated.  She prefers actions to words and strives to be practical and straightforward.  She likes to think that she doesn’t spend time doing nothing when she could be doing something useful.

 

She’s been called ruthless.  She would be lying if she said that didn’t satisfy a small, smug part of her.

 

She’s never considered herself a bad person, either.  Not until now.

 

Adrian’s face is burned into her brain.  It’s overlaid with Emilie’s, long since lost.  It’s overlaid with her own teenage face, sixteen and staring in the mirror and wishing, wishing their mother could come home to eat dinner with them, just once.

 

She thinks of Tezzie’s warm house.  How much Adrian would like it there.  Thinks of her nieces and nephews, thinks of ten years of working for Agreste, thinks of the cold, frozen walls.  Thinks of Adrian’s eyes in the dark, green, hopeful, catlike.

 

She stares up at the purple light reflected on the ceiling.  She’s already decided, she realizes. She had decided the moment Agreste had said _you have done enough._

 

“Yes, Hawkmoth,” she says.

 

\---

 

Later, she’ll recall in painful detail how easy the decision felt, how right.  How it was slotting into place, everything warm with righteous anger. Everything as it should be.

 

She doesn’t know how much of that was Hawkmoth’s power.  How much of it was her. The question of if she could have avoided it, if only she could handle her own emotional turmoil, if she could have seen the butterfly- akuma- _whatever_ , coming, and avoided it- this will haunt her for years to come.

 

\---

 

She sits up, gasping for air.

 

The sky is bright blue.  The sun is shining. To her right, the Seine murmurs and frothes as it winds its way under one of the smaller bridges.  A small scattering of people are talking and cheering.

 

Where is she?

 

“Hey, there!” a woman in a bright red spandex suit says, crouching down beside her.  “You gave us quite the run around.”

 

It’s Ladybug.  Ladybug is smiling at her and she can’t remember how she got to where she is, which means-

 

“I was _akumatized?”_ Nathalie says, stupidly.  “What did I do? I have to-”

 

She scrambles at her pants, but she was wearing nightclothes when she had her meltdown, so of course her phone isn’t in her pockets.

 

Fuck.  Fuck, fuck, fuck, her emotional turmoil was centered around Adrian and what if akumatized her tried to- kidnap him, or murder Agreste-

 

“It’s alright,” Ladybug says soothingly, hands up.  Behind her, Chat Noir is loping up. He stumbles when he gets close, which is concerning- what could she have done that _one of Paris’s heroes_ was afraid to approach her?- but she has other concerns.

 

She grips Ladybug’s arms.  “I need you to call Ezra Gorille.”

 

“What?” Ladybug asks.  She looks startled at this bout of intensity.

 

“I need you to call him- I’ll give you his number- and ask him if Adrian is safe.  Ask him if I did anything.” Ladybug blinks and frustratingly does nothing, so Nathalie gives her a little shake.   _“Please._  Please, I might have- he means a lot to me and I may have hurt him deeply.”

 

Behind Ladybug, Chat Noir blinks at her with wide, green eyes.  That should be important. She doesn’t know why it would be, and she has other things to worry about.

 

But then Chat Noir is crouched down beside her too, his hand on Ladybug’s shoulder.  He smiles at her, disarmingly.

 

“Adrian Agreste?” he asks, and Nathalie nods, frantic.  “He’s safe, madame. You did nothing to him. Too busy overhauling the foster care system.”

 

“I did _what?”_ Nathalie says, because _she did what._

 

“You took issue with some of the laws,” Ladybug says.  “I agree with you, by the way, on the lack of decent programs for mental health.  The rest of it I had trouble keeping up with.”

 

“I kept up with none of it,” Chat Noir says, smug.  Ladybug punches his arm.

 

“We had to stop you because _Hawkmoth,_ duh,” Ladybug says easily, waving her hand.  “And because you were threatening the Mayor.  And a bunch of city council members. But other than that, you were making some really good points.”

 

Nathalie presses a hand to her forehead.  Curses, very quietly.

 

“It did make them improve the laws a lot, if that helps,” Ladybug tells her, encouragingly.  Then she frowns. “The Lucky Charm might’ve changed them all back though.”

 

“Yeah, that was the first time I’ve seen someone hammer out a _contract_ with Hawkmoth,” Chat Noir says.

 

“A what,” Nathalie says faintly.

 

“Yeah, we found you on a roof talking to him, very cool and businesslike.  You used the words _mutuality of obligation,”_ Chat Noir says, sounding out the phrase like it’s in foreign language.  “What does that even mean?”

 

“Moron,” Ladybug says fondly.

 

“You don’t know either!”

 

“I can _guess!”_

 

They sound like squabbling teenagers.  There’s something- about that, that she should find odd-

 

Nathalie could care less about that.  She’s in her pajamas, in the middle of Paris, the sun warm on her shoulders and face, and the last thing she can remember is staring up at the dark ceiling, purple light faint in her eyes, and she just got _akumatized._

 

She laughs.  It’s not because anything’s funny.  It’s more because laughter is a breaking response, like crying or screaming.  It borders on hysterical.

 

“Hey, hey,” Chat Noir says, and his hands are on her shoulders.  “You’re okay. It’s okay, Nathalie.”

 

He seems almost more distressed than she is.  There should be something odd about him knowing her name.  The thought slips through her fingers as quickly as it comes.

 

“It’s not- I-” Nathalie chokes, tries to find the right words.  “I fucked up.”

 

“I’m sure it’s alright,” Ladybug says, gentle.  Chat’s fingers twitch on her shoulders.

 

“No,” Nathalie says, because it’s not, it’s not, it’s not.  She’s nervous, she thinks, but her body is too tired to truly panic, and so she just breathes deeply.  Slumps a little.

 

It’s not okay, she thinks.  But she can apologize. Try and heal the rift she’s inadvertently created.  Move towards being okay again.

 

“I’m alright,” she tells Chat Noir, tired.  He doesn’t look reassured, but he lets go of her shoulders.  Still hovers over her. She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I need to go apologize to Monsieur Agreste.”

 

“He should apologize to you,” Chat Noir says, heated.  Ladybug shoots him an odd look.

 

“I hardly think getting myself akumatized is something he should apologize for,” Nathalie says drily.

 

Both the heroes frown at that, neat and in unison.  But then Ladybug’s earring beep at her, and she covers them, looking annoyed.

 

“I have to go,” she says.  She shoots Chat Noir a smile and a wave.  “See you next time, Kitty!”

 

“Always, m’lady,” Chat Noir says brightly.  And then she’s swinging away towards the buildings, and Chat Noir is-

 

Sitting down beside her.  Which is weird.

 

“You have a time limit,” she states.

 

“I have some time.”  He smiles at her. It’s oddly familiar.  “Let me call you a cab.”

 

He calls her a cab.  They sit on the sidewalk while Nathalie wonders, stupidly, how she’s going to pay for it.  The breeze is warm in her hair. She’s still in her pajamas. Her glasses, oddly enough, are on her face.

 

“So, Adrian, huh,” Chat Noir says.  He turns his green eyes on her, smirks, a sly expression that Nathalie can’t quite place.  “What’s he like?”

 

Nathalie stares at him.  Narrows her eyes.

 

“I take it you’re a fan,” she says, freezingly.

 

“I- yes?” Chat says, confused.  Then his eyes widen, and he waves his hands.  “I didn’t mean- in a stalker way or anything! I just meant- I- my friend really likes him, uh, and I’m wondering… I thought… I was wondering what he was like?”

 

He says it like a question.  He looks confused at his own rambling.  It reminds her, starkly, of Adrian.

 

She relaxes slowly.  Tries to size him up, but Chat seems painfully honest and just- curious.

 

“He is… a very fine young man,” she starts, slowly.  Chat brightens, settles closer to her. “The house he grew up in is a very cold and unwelcoming place, and yet he is becoming- one of the kindest people I know.  Very sincere and warmhearted.”

 

Chat looks eager and interested.  Nathalie considers what would be appropriate to tell a stranger, even if the stranger saves Paris on a regular basis.

 

“He has a fondness for puns,” she says drily.  “I think he got it from his father. Agreste used to tell bad puns,” she clarifies.  “He doesn’t so much, anymore.

 

“Adrian tells them, though.  And he tells amusing stories about his school life.  He… takes pleasure in making others happy.

 

“I wish he’d take some time for himself, though,” she says, softer.  “He deserves happiness. He has been very brave and very kind.” She stops.  Considers. “Any parent would be proud of him.”

 

Chat Noir sniffles.

 

Nathalie looks at him in alarm, and he’s wiping his eyes with the most transparent, emotional face she’s ever seen.  He’s crying huge, globby tears. His nose is running. His lip is trembling.

 

“Are you alright?” she asks, alarmed.  She pats her pants for a tissue and remembers once more that she’s wearing her pajama pants.  

 

“Y-yeah,” he lies blatantly.  She stares him down, but this only serves to make him hiccup and scrub harder at his face, blinking at her with watery eyes.

 

“He loves you too,” he blurts out.  “I- I mean, I’m sure you must- mean a lot to him- you should talk to him.”

 

Nathalie stares.  She doesn’t freeze up, but she does have to force each muscle to unlock.  The statement is startling, but it’s still… true. She does love Adrian. She just hadn’t realized until recently.

 

“I’m sure,” she says very carefully.  “I will… take that under consideration.”

 

Chat Noir nods violently.  And then the cab is pulling up, and Chat helps her get to her feet, and he goes and talks to the driver.  She gets wearily into the back.

 

Chat comes around the side, taps on the window until she rolls it down.  Ducks his head inside and, to her surprise, takes her hand.

 

“Talk to him,” Chat says.  “Please.”

 

“Okay?” Nathalie says.  Chat squeezes her hand, and lets go.  In the sunlight, his hair is gold and his eyes are green and he is familiar in a way she can’t place.

 

“Thank you,” Nathalie says.

 

“It’s my pleasure,” Chat says, simple, and smiles.

 

\---

 

The cab driver insists on giving her a free ride.  Nathalie suspects that Chat paid him. He is a good driver, and they get to the Agreste mansion with no incident.

 

Nathalie rings the buzzer.  Ezra answers, and lets her in, hurried.

 

She drags herself up the stairs, while Ezra follows her.  He’s hovering. She can’t be bothered to wave him off.

 

She gets to the little guest room.  Finds her phone plugged in and fully charged, with thirty-five missed calls from Tezzie and about a hundred increasingly agitated texts.  She types a short assurance that she is fine and no longer akumatized, and then collapses in the bed to take a nap.

 

She doesn’t get one.  Someone knocks politely on the open doorway.  

 

It’s M. Agreste.

 

She blinks at him.  Doesn’t even bother getting up.

 

“Yes?” she asks, flat.

 

He comes into the room.  Sits on the edge of her bed, folds his hands in his lap.  She blinks, and then sits up, because like hell she’s gonna lie down in bed while her boss sits on the edge.

 

“I’ve… had some time to think,” he says, slow.  “While you were akumatized. Adrian is quite convinced that it was my fault.”

 

Nathalie stares at him.  Doesn’t know where this is going.

 

Agreste doesn’t seem to know either.  His hand gravitates towards the back of his neck, rests there for a second.  It’s so reminiscent of Adrian that Nathalie blinks.

 

“I have not been as… present in Adrian’s life as I should have,” M. Agreste says.

 

This is true.  Nathalie would have thought that M. Agreste would tear his own teeth out than admit it, though.

 

“But you have,” M. Agreste continues.  “He has… grown very fond of you.”

 

Nathalie doesn’t know where this is going.  Can’t know. But something quiet is starting to bloom in her, in the empty space where the anger used to be, something like hope.

 

“I reacted too strongly,” M. Agreste says, “When you said he called you Maman.”

 

It feels- good.  Like something close to resolution.  But also painful, and bittersweet. Sad.  She closes her eyes for a minute. Opens them again.

 

“I was… frightened,” he says.  “But that is no excuse.”

 

“It is understandable,” Nathalie says, stiffly.

 

Agreste nods, thankful, for the bone she’s throwing him.  Pauses again. Gathers his words.

 

“I will not fire you,” he says.  “If you wish to quit, I will wave your two week notice without penalty, and am happy to give you a letter of recommendation.  You are… an astounding assistant, and can find good work anywhere.

 

“That being said,” M. Agreste says, carefully, “I would be… grateful, to you.  If you would stay. And I’m certain Adrian would be pleased.”

 

There’s silence between them again.  Nathalie throat is thick. She feels stupidly, ridiculously grateful.

 

“It was never my intention to- replace Emilie,” she says.  “I understand it may have seemed that way. But I am- _not_ her- and I still have no intention of replacing her.”

 

Agreste closes his eyes, presses them shut.  Nods once, grateful.

 

“I would like to stay,” she says, soft.

 

They’re quiet for a little while.  M. Agreste clears his throat. It sounds like sorrow is lodged there.

 

“Thank you,” he says.  His voice is a little strained.

 

“Of course,” she says simply.

 

\---

 

Things don’t immediately go back to normal, because they never do.  But things are better.

 

Agreste leaves to attend some small business.  Nathalie takes a shower. Ezra is, theoretically, picking Adrian up from school.

 

She gets dressed.  Takes a call from Tezzie and talks to her for a little bit, tries to calm her down and assure her that she doesn’t need to come stay with them again.  It’s good, and warm. Nathan demands the phone to tell her how cool her akuma costume looked before Tezzie can stop him. Tezzie gets the phone back at some point and tells her that Julia is emailing her comfort food recipes.  Nathalie tells her thank you.

 

She gathers her laptop and her paperwork.  Tries to figure out where she was in her work before this whole mess started.

 

She’s walking down the hall when Adrian burst through from the other end.

 

She freezes up.  She can’t help it.  But Adrian takes one look at her and charges forward, throwing his arms around her.

 

Nathalie is still frozen up.  Adrian, silly, golden, kindhearted little Adrian, is wrapped around her, his face pressed into her shoulder.  He’s holding her like he’s scared she’ll disappear if he lets go, and it strikes her how young he is. He’s only fifteen.

 

She brings her arms up.  Holds him back, at first tentative, then folding her arms around him and pressing him closer with desperate strength.  It feels gentle and fierce all at once, good and warm and right, like something is finally clicking into place.

 

“I missed you,” Adrian tells her.  He sounds on the verge of tears. “I thought you were going to leave.”

 

“Adrian,” Nathalie says, hopeless.  Presses him closer, says, fierce, “I didn’t.  I’m here.”

 

“I thought-” Adrian chokes out.  “I thought you were mad because I called you Maman.”

 

 _“Adrian,”_ Nathalie says.  She pulls them apart just enough to look at Adrian’s tear streaked face.  His eyes are red. She, very gently, brushes some hair out of his face, and he finally meets her eyes, this gentle, kind, stupid boy.  “I was _never_ angry at you.”

 

Adrian sniffles, rubs his face, looks overwhelmed.

 

 _“Never,”_ she repeats, gentle.  “I was startled, and I was afraid.  I hadn’t considered it before. It scared me.”

 

Adrian hiccups on half a laugh.  “You, scared?” he says, dubious.

 

“Yes,” Nathalie says, and her voice comes out a little dry.  “Even I can be scared.”

 

Adrian laughs, quiet, and she smiles a little.  It feels- better. More like how it used to be, and yet somehow still fundamentally different.  But not a bad different. Just… different.

 

“Impossible,” he says, a shadow of a joke, and smiles at her through his tears.  She reaches into her pockets and luckily this time finds a handkerchief. He tightens his grip on her when she offers it, reluctant to let go, but eventually he pries off one hand and takes it to wipe his face.

 

“I’m not sure if I want to call you Maman,” he blurts out.  “It- makes me think of my old- my other Maman.”

 

“That’s okay,” Nathalie says, gentle.  And it is okay, she realizes. She just wants him to be happy.  “You can call me whatever you’re comfortable with.”

 

“I don’t want to just call you Nathalie,” Adrian says.

 

That touches her, gentle, warm.  She feels like she’s filling up with something warm and airy and lovely and good.

 

“My sister calls me Natters,” she offers, slow.  It feels odd offering her childhood nickname out.

 

“Natters,” Adrian repeats.  He gives her a weak smile. “It reminds me of Chloe calling me Adrikins,” he says, wry.

 

“If you call me Natterkins I will skin you,” Nathalie says flatly, and Adrian bursts into laughter.  And then she’s laughing too, a hard cackling laugh, and Adrian is shaking against her so hard he could be having a seizure.

 

“Oh my god,” Adrian wheezes, when they’ve finally calmed down.  And then he catches his breath and tries, careful, “Natters.”

 

It sounds odd, coming from him.  But not bad.

 

“Yes?” she says.

 

His face breaks back out into a grin, stupidly big.

 

“I’m glad you’re here,” he tells her.

 

Nathalie doesn’t even need to think about it.

 

“Me too,” she says honestly.  



End file.
